How To Remove, Clear, Reveal, Unlock or Reset BIOS Security Password

If you can boot from CD/USB

When Windows doesn’t boot properly and you cannot get into the BIOS to change the boot order, you could be lucky enough that booting to CD or USB might already be set at a higher priority than booting to Windows and simply inserting a CD or flash drive will boot to it automatically. It’s also possible that CD or USB booting could be just below hard drives in the order, in which case you would need to temporarily disconnect the hard drive(s).

If you can still access Windows, another solution to enable CD/USB booting is using a great tool called Plop Boot Manager. What it does is allow booting from these devices even if the system BIOS doesn’t support the function or the boot order is not accessible. Even if you don’t want it for this purpose, Plop is a great tool to know about for using on older computers.

PC CMOS Cleaner

PC CMOS Cleaner is able to recover, remove, decode and display the user or supervisor password stored in the BIOS irrespective of the machine brand. Award, American Megatrends (AMI), Compaq, Phoenix, Samsung, IBM, Compaq, DTK, Thinkpad, Sony, Toshiba are all in the list of supported BIOSes so there’s a good chance your BIOS is included. PC CMOS Cleaner is a bootable Linux CD so you don’t have to worry about operating system compatibility. On launch the program will first try to decrypt and display a list of possible passwords. Failing that, you can choose to remove the password using two options, the second of which will completely reset the BIOS to defaults so you’ll have to go and reconfigure it afterwards.

CmosPwd by CGSecurity

This is one of the more up to date and popular CMOS decryption tools although it’s still quite old dating back to 2007. CmosPwd decrypts the password stored in the CMOS and displays it. The following BIOSes are supported:

With CmosPwd, you can also backup, restore, erase or even kill the CMOS. CmosPwd is included in the Hirens Boot CD DOS programs menu. Select “9. Next” -> “2. BIOS/CMOS Tools” -> “2. BIOS Cracker 5.0 (cmospwd)”. There’s also a version you can run from within Windows which is available on the CGSecurity website along with some useful information.

!Bios by eleventh alliance

!Bios is a tool that was developed for a brute force attack on BIOS passwords. You can also backup and restore the BIOS and there’s even a Blaster option where can blank certain parts of the BIOS in the hope of removing the password, a powerful and potentially dangerous option because it could completely corrupt the BIOS. !Bios can try and crack the passwords used in some common BIOSes including various versions by IBM, American Megatrends (AMI), Award and also Phoenix. It’s a very old tool dating back to the late 90’s so is unlikely to work effectively on more recent computers.

Like CmosPwd, !Bios is also included in the Dos Programs menu of Hirens Boot CD. Select “9. Next” -> “2. BIOS/CMOS Tools” -> “4. !BIOS 3.20 (ibios)”. You can also download a separate !Bios Windows tool.

Invalidating the CMOS Checksum Manually

If you prefer to do it manually rather than relying on automated programs or the other tools like CMOS De-Animator aren’t working, it is possible to reset the BIOS password by using the debug.exe tool which will invalidate the CMOS checksum in a similar way to CMOS De-Animator. This can be achieved by typing two commands into the debug tool if you first boot up the computer in FreeDOS. Here are the instructions.

My BIOS password is fine but hackers changed access level to user and created a user password that I can’t figure out. They also partitioned my C drive and moved everything to that new file. I need to get access to CMOS using a DOS command if possible. Using the boot drive they created, which is no longer full of theyre crap, I can access Windows dir. Is there any way to changeable CMOS user info through the commands?

My understanding of your problem is you have a user account you cannot access and your partitions are not setup properly. This has nothing to do with CMOS, however. Using a boot disk for another operating system, backup all of your personal files, reinstall windows and then restore your personal files. There are several tricks you can use to gain user access to the system, the most notable being the sticky keys method. If sticky keys is enabled on your machine this should work. First, go to the system32 directory in the windows system files, from an OS boot disk where you can access the windows drive. you have to rename the sethc.exe to something else (Dont delete it) and then make a copy of cmd.exe and rename it to sethc.exe. Once this is done boot into windows and press shift 5 times to bring up a console, where you can use the net user command to create a new user or change the password.

WARNING: Some BIOS configurations will lock you out of the system completely if you type in an incorrect password more than 3 times. Read your manufacturers documentation for the BIOS setting before you begin typing in passwords.

Lenovo T460s has a Supervisor password (unknown) and the CMOS battery had also died. Obviously now I am being prompted for basic time date etc but cannot change anything because I don’t have the Supervisor Password. I have been told by several people that I am up for another motherboard – is this true – is there no other option here … that is crazy!

leave cmos battery out, take battery off leave for half an hour to an out with no power then put coms battery in the main battery in and boot should have no password then. work 65% of the time some time batteries need to be out longer.

​finally i found easy solution how to remove bios password without any program and i wrote it on acer page you can guys see there:
community.acer.com/t5/Legacy-Laptops-and-Netbooks/acer-aspire-unlocked-bios/m-p/429008#M68532

hi there: after Reading a lot of web pages, I´m at a dead end. My vaio laptop has a bios password and, if I type the passoword three times wrong, appears one time password, then three times wrong again, appears “system disabled” but without any number.
What can I do?
Thanks!

After a long study of these solutions and a scouring of the internet, I have concluded that there is no solution for the newer laptops such as the Dell Latitude E5520. None of the code-generators nor the bios-flashing applications work on these.

I have a Lenovo Ideapad Z560 with InsydeH2O Bios and I have forgot its Bios Password, which was set four years ago. I cannot login to the windows because it is corrupted. But I can select the boot device priority from the bios by pressing F12 Key.There is no alphanumeric code displayed, when password is wrongly entered. Is there any way to flash this bios and remove its password? I tried several methods, and fed up with all of the methods. Can you please help me?

i have an asus notebook with a bios password problem i tried the cmos battery removal..didn’t work, tried to disassemble the notebook…didn’t work it still ask for a password, went to geek squad they say buy a new notebook…is there really no way to over the bios password?

If none of the methods here work, a last resort would be to try and get another BIOS EPROM chip but not all laptops allow for this and it depends if your laptop uses two chips for the BIOS/CMOS or one.

Thanks for posting this nice lesson on your site.I was able to unlock my Acer laptop by reading and following the instruction on you website.At first,I though youtude could have help me but I tried as much I could and nothing like help I was able to get.But unfortunately,I was able to reach you site and my problems were able to be solved. Thanks

I’m having Bios issues , my laptop screen displays Service Tag and requests System or Administrator password… My Bios doesn’t support Cd and flash options… I’ve tried removing the Cmos and resetting the Jumper.. Tried all the master passwords.. Still no luck.. And most of all the engineers here can’t fix it… The ones who claim they can are charging a fee too high or half the price of getting a Used laptop.. Its a Dell vostro 1540

Raymond, You Really Rock!!!!! Thanks a lot Bro, now i can reset the BiOS password of my laptop. It was so annoying before, but since you have told me about it, no more words anymore but YOU ROCK!!! again, thanks a lot Raymond!
Regards – Amirz